For the second straight season, a game against Illinois resulted in a season-ending injury to Northwestern running back Mike Trumpy.

The sophomore, who led Northwestern's running back corps in both carries and yards rushing this season, tore his ACL in the third quarter in the Wildcats' 38-35 loss to Illinois on Saturday and is out for the rest of the year.

"When you lose a guy as special as Mike is, it hurts the team," senior running back Jacob Schmidt said. "But as a group we've got to pick up the flag. We've got to embrace our role and play that much better."

Schmidt was listed as the starter against Illinois and retains that role on this week's depth chart for the Wildcats' game against Michigan.

Last Saturday's stat sheet tells a different story, however. Trumpy started the game and had 12 carries for 63 yards before his injury, while Schmid had only six carries for 14 yards in the game.

Now listed as Schmidt's backup is true freshman Treyvon Green, who led Northwestern with 17 carries for 67 yards against the Illini.

"He's a special athlete. He's dynamic with the football," Schmidt said. "But at the same time he's young and I think we saw that on Saturday a couple of times."

The status of sophomore Adonis Smith remains up in the air. Smith, who suffered a leg injury that left him sidelined against Army on Sept. 17, was cleared to play against Illinois but got only one carry, for a loss of one yard, despite the injury to Trumpy. He is once again absent from the two-deep this week.